It is known that n-butyl esters such as n-butyl acetate can be produced by a number of routes. For instance, the hydroformylation of propylene in the presence of acetic acid is a method which gives a mixture of n-butyl acetate and iso-butyl acetate. This method however requires a source of syngas which increases capital costs. An alternative method is to react ethylene with vinyl acetate in the presence of an acid catalyst followed by the hydrogenation of the resultant unsaturated ester. A further method is the reaction of ethylene with ethanol in the presence of a base catalyst to form butanol and the reaction thereof with acetic acid to form butyl acetate. In addition, all these methods rely on the use of either relatively expensive feedstocks such as ethylene and n-butanol or involve multiple reaction stages or expensive catalysts and separation stages. The acid catalysed addition of butadiene to acetic acid using ion-exchange resin catalysts having bulky counterions to improve the reaction selectivity to two isomeric C4 butenyl acetates is disclosed in several patents viz., U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,288 (alkyl pyridinium), U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,287 (quaternary ammonium), U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,289 (quaternary phosphonium). The main objective of these patents is stated to be the production of secondary butenyl acetate. However, there is no mention in these documents of the isolation of n-but-2-enyl acetate or the production of n-butyl acetate. Butadiene is a relatively inexpensive by-product of the refining process and is a potential feedstock for making butyl esters. It is commercially available either as a purified chemical or as a constituent of a hydrocarbon cut. For example, as a constituent of a mixed C4 stream obtained from naphtha stream cracking. Typically such streams contain species such as butane, 1-butene, 2-butene, isobutane and isobutene in addition to butadiene. It is advantageous that a process utilising butadiene can use such streams. However, butadiene is also in equilibrium with 4-vinyl cyclohexene, a Diels Alder dimer of butadiene. This dimer can be thermally cracked back to butadiene: So any process involving the use of butadiene as feedstock needs to take this reversible reaction into consideration.
EP-A-84133 describes a process for the production of unsaturated alcohols and/or esters of unsaturated alcohols. The reference describes the reaction between conjugated dienes and water or aqueous carboxylic acids. The resulting product, is a complex mixture of unsaturated isomeric alcohols and esters.